Half of teens exposed to online risk

Thirty-eight per cent of Kiwi kids had online contact with someone they had not met face to face in the past year, new research shows.

And nearly half of all New Zealand teenagers were exposed to potentially harmful content online, including suicide how-to guides and violent images.

The stark information was released yesterday by Netsafe following a study called Nga¯ taiohi matihiko o Aotearoa — New Zealand Kids Online.

It coincides with Safer Internet Day which more than 50 countries were participating in, all hoping to join together for a better internet.

The research uncovered that violent images were the most common potentially harmful content found online by teenagers aged 13 to 17 years.

Hateful content like racist material, self-harm material, how-to suicide guides and ways to be thin all followed.

In all categories except violent images, females reported seeing harmful content online more often than males.

They were also more likely to be “fairly” or “very” upset by the content, the number for females was 38 per cent compared with 18 per cent for males.

Meanwhile, older teenagers were exposed to potentially harmful content more often than those aged around 13 to 14 years.

Younger children could be protected by parental software but it was a different story for older ones, Netsafe chief executive Martin Cocker said.

“We live in an imperfect world where risks exist and young people will often be exposed to them on their devices away from the eyes of their parents,” he said.

“Younger children can be monitored and protected by parental software, but older children will choose who they disclose incidents to, and who they will seek help from.”

But following the discovery of upsetting content online, the study found 11 per cent of children decided not to speak to anyone.

The majority of respondents would speak to a parent, 69 per cent, while 37 per cent would speak with a friend and 17 per cent a sibling.

It was a “big step” if young people stepped forward for help and people needed to be readily available for them, Cocker said.

A total of 2061 children aged between 9 and 17 took part in the study, with the sample a representative of New Zealand children.